Nicholas Stuart is a columnist with the Canberra Times.
Nick Stuart has written three books,
Kevin Rudd: An Unauthorised Political Biography;
What Goes Up: Behind the 2007 Election; and
Rudd's Way: November 2007 - June 2010.

Friday, August 9, 2013

THE PHONEY WAR

One week into the election campaign and it still feels like a phoney war.

Neither side has landed any punches, let alone a knock-out one. The focus has been on photo-opportunities and photo-bombing.

But perhaps more importantly, no one's been outlining real plans for the future either, as this column in the Canberra Times points out . . .

WEEK ONE

For two hours the luncheon had proceeded
smoothly and without incident. After all, Japanese Ambassador Yoshitaka Akimoto (a
distinguished graduate of Tokyo University, formerly posted to both Indonesia
and Russia) didn't achieve his rank through an overly generous sharing of his
innermost thoughts. He successfully smothered a number of questions about
Australia's role in the world until finally, the election came up.

His response was careful,
considered and apolitical. He simply suggested it was disappointing (possibly
even somewhat surprising) that, despite years of talk and planning, Australia
still hadn’t managed to build a high-speed rail network down the east coast.
The audience at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute burst into
enthusiastic, spontaneous applause.

Instead of plans for nation building,
baubles and giveaways dominate the election campaign. Week one has been
chock-a-block with idiocy. The main argument has been economic and stuffed with
ridiculous assertions, harking back to 2007, that one side or another can
“guarantee" lower interest rates. Instead of exposing the ridiculous nature
of such claims the press merely amplifies the ersatz conflict, breathlessly
reporting the latest outrage whatever it happens to be. The reality is simple.

Labor inherited a robust fiscal
position – perhaps more money should have been saved. The government then spent
money to insulate the economy from the economic crisis – perhaps it should have
spent more wisely. ANU academic and former Reserve Bank board member Warwick
McKibben added much-needed perspective to the week's economic debate, only to
see it rapidly degenerate. The school-yard reasserted itself. Children were
yelling. “He said! She said!"

Forget about very fast trains;
building a model railway is too much for this crowd.

The economic argument
theoretically runs that as long as any two of interest rates, inflation and
unemployment are lower now than at the previous election, the government will
be returned. Labor should romp home. But Kevin Rudd (with or without “world's
greatest treasurer" Wayne Swan) seemingly can't convince the electorate
he’s responsible for what’s gone right. Perhaps that's got something to do with,
for example, the redefinition of unemployment. An hour’s work, at any time
during the week, doing anything, removes someone from this particular
statistical queue. It's become a meaningless figure. It’s as vacuous as the
suggestion that either side could “manage the economy" better than the
other.

The suggestion government can
finesse the economic cycle is as ludicrous as the concept that the Reserve Bank
understands what it's doing when it moves interest rates. These are blunt
instruments wielded by uncertain ingénues operating in the dark. If the
government (or Bank’s Governor) were surgeons, they’d be sued for medical
malpractice. They don't have a clue yet desperately pretend they’re steering
the economy one way and another. It’s actually careering down the road
regardless. But hush! Everyone’s playing let's pretend.

So who's winning? The Liberals
haven't landed any surprise punches and Rudd remains very much in the game, but
a couple of worrying trends have emerged for Labor. Most dangerous are a couple
of small telephone surveys, polling about 750 people each, in specific Brisbane
electorates. Labor is supposed to be doing well in Queensland but instead of
making advances these demonstrated the party is behind. A consecutive series of
data points have failed to provide any comfort for the government.

The betting agencies have already
decided who's won this election. If you're reckless enough to punt on a Labor
victory, one dollar will get you four. And you can see why by examining the
dynamic in individual seats. Not even Rudd’s former economic adviser could be
persuaded to waste his time campaigning for Craig Thompson’s marginal seat in
New South Wales. He’s one economist who can read a trend-line. The pressure’s
on. It all grew too much for Labor MP David Bradbury who blew his stack when a
FM radio interviewer actually tried to ask him questions, rather than simply
running dribble. The world according to David Bradbury is a nasty, rapidly
shrinking place.

Nevertheless, still in Western Sydney,
Jaymes Diaz ruthlessly proved his unsuitability for any public office apart from
stacking Liberal branches. My spell-checker doesn’t actually recognise the
spelling, “Jaymes”, and I’m not about to suggest it should “add” this variant
simply to accommodate him. It’s good to see that both parties not merely share
incomprehension about the way the economy works but also an inability to
preselect worthy candidates for parliament.

The system has degenerated. Bradbury’s
interview revealed politicians are using the media as nothing more than a
megaphone for their latest insincere, meaningless platitude. The leaders have
been surrounded by cotton-wool to prevent the emergence of any sharp policy
edges. Rudd offered most – yet it would be too generous to describe his
contribution as “substance”.

Any voter eagerly searching for
policies or programs for the future will meet with disappointment. Alas! It
will be a long time before a very fast train pulls into a station anywhere near
you. As the feelings of anger and disillusion take hold they’ll hurt the
government much more than the opposition. Four more weeks.